J.M.J.
June 25, 2013
32nd Anniversary of the Apparitions in
Medjugorje
Dear Family of Mary!With deep gratitude to Our Lady
for her presence in Medjugorje for these 32 years, we join with her children all
over the world in saying, "THANK YOU!!!"
Today Medjugorje is filled to
capacity with pilgrims from all over the world!
And today, we are
sending out the transcript of Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti's talk on June 24, 2013,
which we streamed, live. The audio was a little hard to hear, and so we want to
send out this transcript so that we can all receive Marija's words and ponder
her heart, so filled with joy and love of Our Lady, on this anniversary day. It
is long!!
Marija speaks at the outdoor altar- 6/24/13
Marija Pavlovic Lunetti June 24, 2013, St. James:
The talk began with the
7-7-7 prayer. Marija said:
We
definitely need it, these 7 Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory bes!! We all know
that in the Church of St. James in Medjugorje, every evening after Mass, we pray
the Creed, 7 Our Fathers, 7 Hail Marys and 7 Glory Bes. Why do we do it?? We do
it in thanksgiving to the Queen of Peace. Today in a special way we can say with
all our hearts, we can really say to Our Lady, "Thank you!" And what we do every
evening here after Holy Mass, all the people who know about this prayer, they
stay and straight away they kneel down, and they gladly stay for a few extra
minutes to say this prayer in order to give thanksgiving to Our Lady. However
some people do not know about this prayer, after Mass is over they simply get up
and they leave the church or the church grounds. We have our habit here.
When we
kneel in the sacristy, we do kind of a favor for each other. Especially when it
is cold or when it is hot in the summer time, we always kneel on a small pad, a
kind of little carpet that we can use to kneel. Sometimes it is just a little
towel. In the shops here you can get a little pad to kneel on. In the Sacristy
with the parish priest...I have to say that the parish priest is an amazing
grace for us because he is a Medjugorje vocation, he is a fruit of Medjugorje.
Not only him, but also his sister who is a nun! In a special way there is a
great joy in our heart to see them, because they are both fruits of Our Lady's
apparitions. And when the prayer to Our Lady begins they always come to me to
give me something to kneel on. I then say, "Sister, maybe you can give it to
someone else!!" Or maybe I take it and then give it to someone else who has
difficulty kneeling down. And then in my heart I say, maybe this is a little
sacrifice that I can do. To kneel down without knee pads. Maybe someone next to
me needs it more than me. Then I always see a beautiful smile on the face of
that person. And that smile shows so much love, and that smile is full of love.
And this
is something that I like here in Medjugorje! When pilgrims come for the first
time, they are a bit confused and they don't have experience. And what we have
learned, that Our Lady is here, and she loves us and she wishes us well. She is
here to hug us and embrace us, and at the end we all feel good, and above all we
feel privileged. We even feel more and more [that we are] Our Lady's children.
The heart of Our Lady is a heart that beats in our own bodies because we can
feel her love, we can feel her joy to be here present with her children. She is
here to love us, to teach us, to change us.
But Our
Lady says to us, "Living the way you are living you will not have a
future or eternal life." Then we respond, "We are sinners but we are
your children." And this is something Our Lady knows, and that is why she says
to us, "Go to Confession. Choose a priest who will become your spiritual guide.
Leave sin. Renounce sin and start walking on the pathway of
holiness."
She, at
the beginning, began guiding the parish of Medjugorje in this way. And so many
people were saying at that time, "But what can she tell us??" She speaks a lot,
they say. And those who oppose Medjugorje say that she speaks too much. But we
can say she wants to guide us on a beautiful way, and that sooner or later we
will be on that pathway in her Immaculate Heart, because she wants us to be
inside her Immaculate Heart. She invites us, she loves us and she says to us,
"Dear children." She says to us, exactly as she did at the foot
of the Cross with the Apostle John, when the other apostles were lost, when they
were helpless, she says there is still hope for them, for us, because Jesus,
their Master is dying for them on the Cross. And Jesus said to Our Lady,
"Mother, behold your son." And what did He say to John? He said to
John, "Behold your Mother." And we are those who through John
receive this call from the Mother. We also have become the children of God and
the children of Our Lady. We have become what Our Lady invites us to be.
Today,
with her extended hands in today's world, Our Lady comes to us. She comes not to
1000, or 30,000, or 100,000...no she comes to all of us. Each one of us is
important to her. We are poor. We are poor souls in everything, but especially
in a spiritual way....
We can't
say we began a movement. All we can say is that Our Lady appeared and she told
us to place God in the first place in our life. Maybe you are sick; maybe you do
not have health. You do not have faith. Maybe you are searching for something
supernatural, so that you can feel something in your heart. I am saying to you,
you are at the right place. Our Lady says, "Pray, pray, pray."
You are not here because of beautiful hotels. There is no luxury here. There is
not air conditioning everywhere here. You are not at the coast, because there is
no sea here! But we are here before the heavenly sunshine, before the sea of
Love with Our Lady, in the school of prayer that Our Lady started here.
Our Lady
wanted this parish and she started giving messages. So many times she was
saying, "My dear children, I am your mother." And she said to
us so many times, so that we would not forget this, "You need God.
Without God you do not have a future." Even if we have everything in
this world, all the material things, we will leave everything behind, clothes,
cars, houses. You will leave it all behind. And those who have more will leave
more behind.
But
there is one thing to know, that if you have everything, but you do not have
God, what do you have? Nothing! God created us in His image, and without Him we
have nothing. I believe we all know a person. Suppose that person's name is
"Stanko". We can say that I knew that person, that person laughed with me. I
knew his hair style, etc. But that person is dead. Then we say that that person
yesterday was driving a car, was walking, was working, was talking, and now that
person is gone. That person has a body, but the spirit is gone. We also know
many people who are alive, who work and walk and live, but who are spiritually
dead. They are dead spiritually, even though they are walking around.
There is
a friend of mine who shares that there are volunteers who go to Africa to help.
Those volunteers are often very rich people. They come from rich families.
However they are not happy, they are not pleased, they don't see a future for
themselves. And yet they have everything. Those people are from families which
have provided everything that they needed and yet those young people are not
happy. And they say that they come to Africa to help, and after their experience
in Africa they go home completely changed. One day I spoke to one of those young
men, and I said to him, "What did Africa give you??" And that young man said to
me, "Africa gave me the joy of life." Why, because that young man could see
children who did not have anything but the shirt on them, but they were happy.
They had an improvised ball and that ball was a piece of plastic. And that was
the way that they learned to play football. And he said, "I played football with
them, and I ate with them, and I ate very little. And I would try to get some
sleep, but I would go to bed hungry. I had pains in my stomach, because we
couldn't eat more. There was not enough. Then I would remember the times I would
go to my kitchen and open the refrigerator, and it was full of food, and I would
still complain that there was nothing in this house for me to eat!! And yet the
refrigerator was full!! Then I understood what it meant to have nothing to eat.
That person came back from Africa and started studying and working for missions
with a group of people who pray. And he works and whatever he earns, in the
afternoon he puts it aside for the missions in Africa.
How
often are we indifferent? How often do we see those who have nothing, who have
no clothes to put on and we do not think of them? Our Lady has been saying to
us, that prayer and fasting can even stop wars, even the wars in your
hearts...those moments when you don't think about God. When there is not God in
your heart, when we do not think about God's commandments, and when we do not
live them. That is why Our Lady says, "Wake up, wake up from the sleep
of lack of faith." I am thoroughly convinced that the person who starts
praying becomes a better person. That person is ready to serve other people and
more and more that person becomes more sensitive and a person of
feelings.
We see
that Our Lady calls us to return to God, renounce sin, convert. We need to know
how to do this work. Place the Sacred Scripture in the first place in your
family homes. Read from the Bible, open the Bible every day. And Our Lady says
to us, "Choose a priest to be your spiritual guide, a spiritual guide
who will help you, who will teach you, and who will give you absolution in the
name of God." And in the name of God he will help you, so that the name
of God will be there for us in the moment when we need it. And Our Lady says,
"Place the Holy Mass in the center of your life. There you will meet God. There
you will receive God. And with the help of God you will find your pathway on
this earth, in the world, he will give it to you."
We were
children when the apparitions started, and I remember we were saying that there
were so many young people who were lost, and we could see so many young people
who were lost in drugs and lost in alcohol. That was a time of Communism, and
the Communist's wanted to make everyone believe that God does not exist. I was a
student, and at school we had to learn about Marx and about Communism, and they
used to say faith is the opium for the masses. And imagine me; I had to study
all about this, me, who was able to see Our Lady! So who was right, Our Lady or
that poor man with his ideology? Thanks are to God, Communism is gone, but
unfortunately now there is consumerism and materialism around us, but Our Lady
comes and says to us that our life is temporary, that it will pass. As the
Sacred Scripture says, for those who are strong maybe they will live for 70
years. And today science says we may live longer, that people will live to 150
years...But yet, what is all that compared with eternity?? Is it worth insisting
on being here?? Why don't we do our best to deserve and merit
heaven??
I have
to say that all of you are courageous to be here in this sunshine. I can say
that maybe you can say "I will give this as a gift to the Lord. And I offer this
for the conversion of so many other people or for the healing of so many people
who are here in our midst, for the healing of so many children who have
commended themselves to my prayers who have Leukemia.
I
remember the time when we were young, in 1989, when we wanted to convert
everyone. We wanted to be perfect as Our Lady is. I remember we wore long skirts
because we didn't want to scandalize anyone. And we were telling people who were
not properly dressed to put something on their shoulders, so they wouldn't
scandalize anyone. We could also see many young people who were far from faith.
There were young people who didn't have faith. So we decided we would found a
prayer group, and every Friday night we would pray for those young people who
are far from God. And that is exactly what we did. We asked our parish priest if
we could do it, and we just asked for the church to be given to us, nothing
else, nothing more, but just the church to go to and pray. But he asked who
wants to come. We told him, all the young people in our prayer group. And he
said yes. We were so happy and content because we were given permission from the
parish priest. And we started singing and praying before the Lord. And then I
remember we would soon see that it was 3:00 in the morning! We didn't even go to
bed at all. Imagine! We were young people full of enthusiasm. But we were not
really ready for this. But slowly, slowly, we were down on our knees, and our
heads were bowed, and we looked like Muslims, who are praying. And then you
could see and hear nothing, but silence, because everyone was in silence. You
couldn't even hear the birds chirping. As we say here, it was the silence of the
tomb. Then we were all asleep, and we could hear someone snoring. Then we would
tease that person. Then after a while Our Lady said to us, "Bring the
Sacred Scripture. Have the Bible with you." And then we would joke,
when someone fell asleep and snored that that person was profoundly meditating,
when that person was actually asleep! And I remember one person, a man there
with his wife, and when he would snore, his wife would kick him, and then he
would wake up and just continue, "Holy Mary, Mother of God..."
I always
say that the family that has a future is the family that prays, the family that
exists. And as Our Lady said to us, "We are now going to pray a rosary a day."
Often we would be tired at work, but we would still be able to pray at the end
of the day the Rosary. And the wife of that young man would say, "Ok I will say
the first part of the Hail Mary, and then I will kick my husband and tell him to
pray the second part, Holy Mary...!!" She loved her husband, and she wanted to
pray together with her husband, because in marriage man and woman become one.
And on
the bus that goes from Medjugorje to Mostar, it stops at least 15 times. And
everyone knew that this husband was from Medjugorje because everyone knew that
if someone bumped him on the bus and woke him up, he would simply start to
pray!! He was not a fanatic, just a person of good will, someone who worked hard
himself, and who loved his family. And that is what Our Lady asks of us. Our
Lady doesn't want us to become fanatics. And she doesn't want all of us to
become missionaries and to go to Africa. But she says, "Go to your families!"
From the Mount of Tabor, go back to your family. And do what you can do, through
God's blessing and Our Lady's intercession, that your family, that your parish
community can become worthy of the presence of God. So that we who are able to
say we want God and we want the Blessed Mother in our families and at every
single level of our family life.
That is
what Our Lady asks of us. She desires to say to us, "Convert. Change
your life! Without God there is no future, no eternal life, because without God
we do not have a future." That is why Our Lady says to us, and she is
tirelessly inviting us, "Pray!" She has been appearing here for
a long time, and she has been saying "Return to God." So often
she repeats, "Pray, pray, pray!" There is time for you when you
get back home to play, to shop, to rest. But the hill where Our Lady appeared is
here. The Cross Mountain is here. And Our Lady chose this country to wake us up
again, and to say to us "I am your mother. Go back to your family and take me
with you." If we start to think with the heart of Our Lady, then we will feel
the urgency to convert and to give witness to all those who live close to us. We
will be worried for our children who are far from God. We will be worried about
our husbands or wives and we will desire to pray for them and to be an example
to them with our lives. Then for them we will be willing to make sacrifices. We
will go even to Apparition Hill.
I
remember a friend of mine who came to Medjugorje just for one day. At that time
she wasn't a friend of mine, but now she is a friend of mine. She is a very
modern person. She really takes care of her body and she is very much into
sports. She works in a pharmaceutical company and she has a pharmacy herself.
And people would come to her and say, "Can you give us advice. What should we
do?" And then on the day of their wedding anniversary, her husband came to her
and said, "I am going to bring you to Medjugorje." And she said, "OK, but just
one day please." But Our Lady waited for her here. And Our Lady really loved her
and changed her. And she really fell in love with Our Lady. She has three
children. And she even has a dog. Every morning she doesn't go up Apparition
Hill, but she wakes up at 5:00 in the morning and she is an exemplary mother,
very modern, very into sports. But every morning she goes jogging with her dog
and she prays the Rosary. Our Lady didn't say what way, because you can pray a
rosary while you are preparing your meal, while you are driving, while you are
ironing. No one said in what way we should pray. But Our Lady simply says, pray
the rosary. Maybe in the beginning it will be a rosary, but we will pray without
thinking about it. But as we say, eating you learn how to eat, and we say,
praying you learn how to pray. And we are here to learn how to pray and how to
have peace with God and Our Lady.
And Our
Lady gives us messages. She says, "Put my messages into practice. Live
my messages." And I say to you - Live the messages. The messages of Our
Lady are nothing new. They are already written in the Sacred Scripture. Maybe
those of us here will never meet again, will never see each other. But what you
have met here and what you have experienced in your heart here will remain an
amazing treasure. That is why I say do not waste time; make good use of your
time in Medjugorje. Use this time in Medjugorje and pray.
I
remember my own personal experience when I asked Fr. Slavko to become my
spiritual guide. I said to him, "Can you be my spiritual guide?" Then he said
yes. Then I said, "Can we meet? When, where, how?" And then he looked at me in a
really profound way and he said to me, "Ok tomorrow morning at 5:00 in the
morning at your house." I was 16 years old. And you know what young people do at
that time in the morning? What do they prefer at that age, what do they like
more? At five o'clock they are back from the disco, and they just want to sleep.
But I never went to the disco, but I loved sleeping, and when he said 5:00 am,
it was amazing for me. And I said, "Ok...I have this plan...at night when I go
to bed I will put clothes on, and put even my shoes on, and sleep with my shoes
off the bed, a when Fr. Slavko would pass by, I would be ready with clothes and
shoes on! But I have a strong will, and I said to myself, I have to do it. Not
really that I have to do it, but I wanted to do it. And I can say that when I
have that desire in my heart to be better, more holy, in reality to try to live
more and better the messages of Our Lady, I have lived some of the most
beautiful moments of my life.
When Fr.
Slavko would come, he would begin, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit." He wouldn't say, "Dear one, did you get any sleep? Did you get
enough sleep, did you sleep well?' He wasn't just talking, as many Italians are
doing when they are up on the hill! They talk, talk, and talk! But I believe in
a special way Our Lady loves Italy, because she sent me to Italy to convert you!
No, I am just kidding. I believe that God in his mercy will convert all of us!
That is
why I desire to say with my heart, "Use this time. This is a time of
great grace for us." When it happened to Jakov, the visionary, that Our
Lady said the time has come when you won't have any more daily apparitions,
Jakov remembers those times and he would love to see her now every day. And now
when he meets me he will say, "How was it yesterday - how was it. What was it
like?" And I often will see a tear in his eye. And I ask myself, why did they
stop for him, and I still have them? Why is it not the other way around? Why was
it us, and not somebody else? We have many questions. I am not perfect, I am not
a saint. I am a sinner. But I have a desire in my heart to be better and to
convert, to really become a child of Our Lady.
Start
thinking in this way: I believe that Our Lady's children will become better.
Maybe we will make a decision and start a prayer group. Maybe we will be able to
help each other. Maybe we will learn how to pray properly the mysteries of the
Holy Rosary of Our Lady, and every day we will become richer and more content,
happier, because God won't be up there in the clouds in heaven far away, but in
our midst. Because we live as Jesus said, "Where two or three are
gathered in my name, I am present there." And we, in the name of Jesus,
will be able to start living a brand new life for ourselves, for the world, and
for our future, for our own children.
Our Lady
said once when we consecrated ourselves to her Immaculate Heart, and it was
during the time of one of the apparitions, and all of the people were there, and
I was in Sicily and one of the officials of the government in Sicily, when he
read the consecration prayer to Our Lady, Our Lady answered and said,
"You won't regret this, neither your children nor your children's
children." I wish that in your act of coming to Medjugorje for your
personal conversion, that through your personal conversion to her Immaculate
Heart, I hope and pray that Our Lady will act and work in your heart and will be
able to say to you, "You won't regret doing this, neither you, nor your
children, nor your children's children." This is something that I wish for all
of you from the bottom of my heart.
And this
evening when I am together with Our Lady I am going to pray for all of you. I
can't remember all of you by name, but I am sure that all of you are already in
the heart of Our Lady. And I am going to pray for all of you and for all of your
intentions. And I am going to pray for all that you carry in your heart, for all
the members of your family that you left at home. We will also pray for all
those people who do not have the faith or courage to come to Medjugorje. Maybe
they are sick, confined to bed, and they cannot come to Medjugorje. I am going
to pray for all of you and present all of you to Our Lady. I will pray for all
of you. Thanks be to God we have so many priests here. We will ask one of them
to do what they do, to bless us all. It is a grace that they can do it because
we receive Jesus from their hands. And we really have to pray a lot for our
priests. And we have to love all priests. We ask all our priests to pray over us
and for us that they may give us God's blessing, so that we can live in our
hearts, act in our hearts and our lives with God's heart and God's eyes. (All
the priests came and blessed us!)
Happy
Anniversary, one and all!!
Cathy Nolan
(c)Mary TV 2013
"Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!"
Blessed John Paul II -
Be connected!
As
we have repeated so many times, we will adhere to whatever the Church eventually
directs concerning the famous apparition site of Medjugorje in Hercegovina,
where we are concluding an extremely successful pilgrimage with a truly
wonderful group.
At the
church, the doors literally have to be barricaded shut during certain Masses due
to overcrowding inside. Not a single other person can fit. It is the opposite of
the problem in the West (where too many churches are empty -- barricaded because
they are closed).
What of
the "secrets"? The seers say that some of them pertain to Medjugorje itself, and
this is curious, because one wonders if one of them has to do with an event or
even natural disruption such as an earthquake in the village itself. The
original church here was heavily damaged by a tremor and led to construction of
the famous twin-towered one. One seer told a priest two decades ago that her
first secret had to do with a local event somewhere in the world and when she
was asked if people would rush to see it, she said no more than people would
rush to see, say, a dam "that collapses in Italy." Mirjana will inform a priest
of her choice beforehand (probably a friend of hers, Father Petar Ljubicic).
What of a permanent sign? One wonders if it might have to do with rays of
spiritual light, as suggested by